If managing and expanding a kingdom sounds like a good time, perhaps you haven’t thought it all the way through. Governing an empire, as the real-time strategy game The Settlers 7: Path to a Kingdom is eager to point out, is all about micromanaging. Wage wars on too many fronts, and you’re toast. Don’t research enough technology, you’re toast. Don’t cut down enough trees…well, you get the point.

We've been waiting for this all week. No, really. This teaser trailer shows off the cooperative gameplay abilities of the next Portal iteration. Players can play as different characters and will run through a different storyline than the single player portion of the game.

More details on Portal 2 will be released next week at PAX in Seattle, WA. Check out the video after the cut!

If you loves you some iOS gaming, then this will come as very happy news: The much anticipated announcment that the iControlPad will become a twitchy fingered reality has been realized.

Now, can we get a w00t-w00t?

As awesome as the increasingly diverse range of games available to iPhone and iPod touch owners is, it's a fair argument that many of the games that we know and love could be just a little more fabulous if the control possibilities weren't so darned limited. Seriously, how many of you out there can look me in the eye and say that their high score wasn't crippled by a less than perfect on screen joypad experience?

More Portal 2 gameplay footage has been released at Gamescom. The high definition footage includes a first-person view through two of the levels, and a showcase of the game's seemingly realistic mechanics. It also offers a glimpse at two new features, like the Repulsion Gel, which enables you to bounce from any surface, and the Faith Plate. Watching the game almost feels like you're in the backseat of those virtual reality motion rides. Check it out after the cut!

Welcome to yet another Game Time. This week we take on a few games that differentiate themselves from other titles in the App Store with elements like subtle gameplay mechanics and unique visual styles. Not all of the games featured scored a grand slam on their first try, but all are worth checking out.

Almost six years after its release on Windows, the legendary Half-Life 2 has arrived on the Mac thanks to Valve’s Steam digital distribution channel. For newcomers to the series, Half-Life 2 is everything the Mac hasn’t had since the halcyon days of Marathon--it’s a terrific sci-fi/horror first-person shooter with a brain.

Welcome to this week’s GameTime. This week we’ll take a look at spiritual successors, sequels and downright ripoffs. But the surprise here is that even the games with the most blatantly jacked play mechanics still shine on the iOS Devices.

A child born on the day the original StarCraft was released is now a gawky, braces-wearin’, growth-spurtin’ 12-year-old. While that’s a sobering thought for us older gamers, and a ridiculous time to wait between for a sequel, the fact remains that StarCraft and its Brood War expansion pack helped define the real-time strategy genre, and the long-anticipated StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty is absolutely worth the wait.

If there were bigger news this week than the fallout and repercussions from the legalization of jailbreaking, we've yet to hear it. But news, as it always does, did happen, and the happy elves of Mac|Life were there to make sense of the pieces, just for you, Dear Reader.